I want to design a plane in FSDS what can you guys tell me that will make designing planes alot easyer for me I am going to begian on the tutoreals next week and go from there and maybe I will be able to design a plane any suggestions on what airplane I should design first?

thanks Greg Busby

• RE: designing a plane in FSDS,RobertVA, 05:45z, 08-10-02
  • RE: designing a plane in FSDS,Extra300S, 03:08z, 08-12-02
• RE: designing a plane in FSDS,DeeWaldron, 23:31z, 08-11-02

Are you planning on making planes for versions of MSFS earlier than 2002?

One thing I REALY like about FS 2002 is the virtual cockpits on the FS 2002 specific planes. I gather the GMAX included with FS 2002 Pro is required to make planes with virtual cockpits though. Apparently there is a newer version of GMAX that has to be downloaded or installed off a recent issue of PC Pilot magazine's companion CD(#17 issue 08). I gather GMAX still needs files from the FS 2002 pro CDs to produce planes though.

I haven't seen enough about GMAX to see how similar using it might be to using FSDS. I get impression both involve connecting series of cross sections to make each part (wing, fuselage, engine nacelle etc) of the plane. I gather a better level paint program is required for making textures to cover the parts (additional shareware fee for program on FSDS disk).

Been thinking of trying my hand at a few fantasy planes myself. Don't know enough about how any real world plane's handleing characteristics to use the name of a real world plane on anything I might create.

Robert

Near KORF

I was just thinking the same thing Robert

FSDS Pro is a low level CAD program made especially for FS modeling. It's very easy to build FS models with it and export them into FS2000 or FS2002. Start with the included tutorials. They're very good. You'll be producing simple model's in no time at all. The more you work with it, the more you'll love it. Users have written various advanced tutorials on different subjects. Check out www.freeflightdesign.com
Gmax on the other hand is a CAD program made for doing all kinds of game modeling. Not easy, it has a very steep learning curve. While it comes with basic "how to" tutorials, none of them are specific to FS modeling. The only offical documentation on how to export models into FS is in the MS SDK for Gmax. But it's only basic. Lots of users have written tutorials on Gmax also. Same address as above.
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Dee Waldron (HJG)